>> nate cohen is crunching the numbers. >> i'm krystal ball. from coffins to clintons to celebrities and big bird. which ad didn't fly with voters? >> i'm s.e. cupp. it's a matter of hours until we know whether mitt romney is moving to 1600 pennsylvania avenue. >> just 1,462 days to election day 2016. hillary clinton you're the next contestant, come on down. i'm ahead of myself. you're in "the cycle" for monday, november 5th. >> this is it. t mif minus one day and counting. tomorrow the talking ends while people vote and the counting begins. the what kind of election will

2012 be? we know the polls nationwide show a virtual tie. we know that polls in the big battleground states give the president a small but persistent edge. there are gaps with each campaign, gender, enthusiasm, race and income. today we compare 2012 with three previous elections, 1980, 2000 and 2004. in 2004 it was a turnout election and a change of 70,000 votes in ohio would have meant president kerry. in 2000 gore won popt lar vote but bush prespraled in the electoral college. 1980 was thought fairly close, but at the end governor reagan caught the wave and unseating the incumbent, president carter in a route. the only man who has covered all those elections and more is tom brokaw. which of those three does this one remind you of most? >> the fact is i'm one of those that does not believe earlier elections are a kind of

signature for this election. i think this one is unique. irng we' i think we're at a different time in america. we've never had an african-american president running against a mormon for president. that changes things. what was missing from those elections are all of this and also the internet. those two instrumentations, cable coverage and the internet and bloggers, have changed the dialogue in american presidential politics. to what end we'll find out tomorrow night. i think they'll have an impact. during those elections even though times were tough in many instances, there wasn't anything quite like what we've gone through in the last four years with economic downturn, which was the greatest since the great depression. when president obama took office, a lot of people thought, including his principle economic advisers, they could emerge from it in 2009 at some point. we were told the recession was over. it turns out it was not a v, it was an l. it went down and went straight

across and went across and astayed across. this is unique. >> this election is about fear, great fear. both sides making the other people afraid of what will happen if that person becomes president, even paul ryan stoked it more yesterday saying obama's second term will threat jude ya christian voluntariliy values, means. where do we go from here for the rest of the nation where half country will be afraid who the president is, maybe saying he wasn't legitimate and saying it was stolen and fearful where that person will lead us? >> aing thi think that depends determination of citizens across the country that are outside the normal teams that operate in the two campaigns. we have a professional middle class in america. they're stoking the fires of fear. as i go across the country, people want the country to work together again. if a republican wins, they want that republican to work with the democrats and vice versa.

i was out in the great plains. that's a part of the country doing very well. they didn't do any of the dumb things with subprime lending, agriculture is booming and unemployment in north and south dakota are under 5%. if they can make it work, why can't they make it work in washington? we need more of that to move the country forward. we're still playing by 20th century rules in this country in almost everything we do and we're in the 21st century. what's so striking is we're all in awe of silicon valley and all it produces for us. this transformative technology. what's the mantra of silicon valley? be disruptive. don't be afraid to challenge convention. find new ways to do things. we get excited about that. with our political culture we play by the old rules. >> it's so true. another thing we talked about in this campaign at length is the record number of negative ads, the influx of super-pacs, the

fact that the president and mitt romney seem to really have a distaste for one another, and we talk about how nasty this campaign has been overall. is this by historical standards a particularly ugly, nasty campaign, or do we have short memories? >> i think we have short memories. there are a lot of campaign in the past. it was really tough between gore and bush 43, that first one. they didn't like each other. it showed up in the debates and privately how they expressed themselves about each other. we were emerging from eight years of the clinton aadministration going into what the republicans hoped was their chance to recapture the white house. they let fly, as they should have. same thing with the democrats. there was a lot of tough stuff that went on. i was with historians and other friends of mine looking back over the long course of american history, and this presidential campaign is nothing compared to what it was like in the 19th century when it was all about character aassassination all day, every day. every newspaper was a highly

partisan newspaper. you had leaflets that in those days were the early version of the internet or the blog. they would say almost anything about their opponent to try to gain some advantage. this is the nature of what we do. i do think it's incumbent upon the voters to sit back and say, i can't trust that one anymore. they're manipulating me. i'm not going to go there. >> well, tom, so you're not big on the sort of the past as a precedent for this particular election, but one that has jumped out to me is 2004. i feel this is a mirror image of 2004 where obama is pay p played the role bash played that year. you have high base turnout and that thing. one potential parallel is this. the 2004 election ended with bush getting a late burst of momentum winning by 3.5 million votes. it wasn't a landslide, but it felt like one. we see indications now that

obama has moved back ahead in the popular vote and is well-positioned in the swing states. do you see a scenario where there's a surprisingly large margin for obama where he gets governing momentum out of this that might help him legislatively in the next few months. >> that would surprise me. i don't know what that margin is, by the way. you get more running room. here's what i know. the tea party is not going away. i've been talking to them. it's an insurgency, and they're going to continue, however large or small their success is in this election. they have really found their purpose in life, and they're going to be moving across the country and staying there and they're going to be in the face of republicans and democrats alike, whoever wins this next time around. i think that is a very large issue. i also think it depends on the president, whoever it is, whether it's governor romney or president obama, being able to reach outside of what is pretty narrowly cast at this point, the

political culture they represent, and trying to put together grand coalitions not necessarily with the hill but beyond the beltway with the academy, with business, with think tanks, with agriculture and saying, we're competing in an entirely different environment. china has the second largest economy in the world, and it's on track to pass us. we're exciting against brazil and india in a way that we weren't just four years ago. we have to change. >> tom, you know, if president obama gets re-elected, he'll have the fiscal cliff to deal with in the short term. then, of course, questions about libya are not going to go away. if anything i think republicans will feel more em bodiened to question the president and state department on that story. of course, as willing as the left was to be loyal foot soldiers to get obama re-elected, i think they'll have sort of a shorter attention span and shorter patience for obama in a second term. they'll want him to make good on

some of the promises that he made for the first term and didn't. it sounds like a nightmare to me. is there a small part of obama, you think, that is hoping maybe i don't need to win tomorrow. >> no, i don't think there's that. i think when you have a second term, you don't have to worry about re-election. you're much more your own man in so many ways. he can take on his own party, for example. now, i do think that the administration has failed miserably to come up with a coherent answer about benghazi. but benghazi by itself as an event, as tragic as it was, in the large scheme of things of what's going on in afghanistan and iraq and across the middle east is really just another signpost. it's not the defining issue it seems to me. i mean, i've been thinking about what happened after we invaded iraq, for example. we weren't prepared to govern the country. it was utter chaos. it was civil war. it was anarchy in baghdad, and

the american people had been assured that once we get there that the shia will cooperate with us and we can put it back together again. it was a disaster for two years running, and the death count went up more than it should have. that didn't get the same type of examination. it doesn't take way from the benghazi and i'm looking at what goes on in washington under the new intelligence umbrella. did the cia have something and didn't get to the nsc? do the director of intelligence been more proactive about what's going on there? >> there's a lot of angles. >> if you saw the roots of this libyan revolution, the first thing you would think about is how do we secure our people? >> right, of course. >> you say in the second term you're your own man. a lot of second terms have not gone so well. >> that's because they get used to the idea of being president. they take their eye off the ball. president reagan had iran contra

in his second term, but by then jim bakker had left as white house chief of staff and went down two or three notches in the kind of people around them. that's the issue. i think the same happened with governor bush 43. he took his eye off the ball and got accustomed to thinking going his way. katrina happened in the second term, and they just are not as responsive. good folks leave. so the test for this president is given the conditions of the country, how do i get the best people in here and probably shake up my team and be responsible to some of the criticism i have received. in the second term you have a chance to make your mark. the president is smart enough to know that he's not at this stage going to be remembered as a great president. if he wants to be remembered as a great president, not just the first african-american president, he has to take it to the next level in the next term. >> all right. always an honor to have you

here. thank you very much. >> you'll get over that. i promise. >> up next, our final state of the day in the spin, and i hear there's some big changes. people want to change their maps again. we have a big show for you live from democracy plaza as "the cycle" rolling on for monday, november 5th. kornacki says it sounds orwelian. i say i love america. time for your business entrepreneurs of the week. cath lynn bailey and susan cade are encouraging shoppers to shop local. they created the night burbank, california to boost sales by staying open late. make sure to support your local retailers on november 24th for the third annual small business saturday. for more watch "your business" on sunday mornings at 7:30 on

msnbc.

the candidates are streaking through the country today trying to hit up as many toss-up states as possible. the president has already been to wisconsin and will hold events in ohio and iowa before the night is through. mitt romney is through florida and is on his way to his second stop in virginia. romney has an event planned for ohio later today before his final rally in new hampshire tonight with special guest kid rock. we spent the last week or so giving you states to watch for tomorrow night. saturday we broke down iowa. today we zero in on a state with very different concerns, nevada. it, too, has six electoral votes up for grabs, but unlike iowa nevada is racked by the housing market and has the highest unemployment in the nation. why does the president hold a slim lead in the silver state? let's put it through the spin cycle. i think we all have nevada going blue? >> yes. >> remarkably, we all agree on something. >> we all agree on nevada. >> never happened before. >> yeah.

i have it going blue because primarily because of early voting. early voting in nevada has 48,000 more democrats than republicans going to the polls in early voting, casting 700,000 votes. if projections go as planned and they get an 80% turnout, that means 70% of the votes have already been cast there. so me, that seems a pretty good indication of where this state is going. i'll give sail ver lia silver l mitt romney, and that is a lot like colorado. nevada has a very high mormon population. 7%, which is actually fairly high, and again, mormons accounted for a quarter of the electorate in the caucuses. so i think if they turn out in big numbers and it's been really hard to tell where they're at, because they haven't been very vocal, but if they turn out in big numbers, i think mitt romney could get the state. i don't expect him to. >> i would expect him to turn

out in big numbers. to your point on early voting, john ralston of tsays they need everything to break right. there's an interesting subplot in nevada. they basically do not have a republican party infrastructure in nevada. ron paul supporters took over the republican party back aways back. it's disintegrated. they had to set up a shadow operation in the state to give rnc money. the republican party there is really a disaster. on the other hand, the democratic party probably has its strongest machine in the entire country in nevada thanks to the work that harry reid has done and also the 55,000-member culinary union. i would also add to that where nevada is a place having that ground infrastructure is so critical because they were hit hard by the housing crisis.

people are displaced. you can't get a list of phone numbers and expect to reach anybody. you have to knock on doors, figure out where people are living, what their new number is, how to get in touch with them. i think democrats are much better equipped to do that kind of work. >> yeah. i think there's such a thing as a few states that fit this. you call them close but lopsided and i think nevada is a perfect example of this. what i mean is there's a republican tradition in the state, there's a conservative tradition in the state. a republican candidate for president doesn't have much trouble in the mid-40s in that state in a bad year like 2008 or in a better year for republicans like this one a little higher, 45, 46, maybe 47%. there's a clear ceiling right now for the national republican party in nevada because of demographics. it has the smallest share -- the biggest share of non-white voters of any battleground state and a big component is latino vote. right now the republican party's image are latino voters in

nevada and everything is poisoned. you're looking at him running up a big margin. this is a state where republicans are doomed to cap out at 47, maybe 48% going forward until and unless they solve their hispanic problem. >> yeah. i got an e-mail from latino decisions today. they talked about the last weekly tracking poll of the season. record high share of latino vote will go to democrats, likely record turnout numbers. they expect 74% of the electorate are very enthusiastic. they expect 73% of likely latino voters go for obama, which will break the record for latinos going for a democrat. clinton got 72% in '96. that will make the difference in nevada, in colorado, perhaps in florida and in virginia your commonwealth, which i have to change my map and go blue when i see this record turnout of latinos coming. it's going to look like the story we're going to have to

write after the election is romney tacked far too right on the primary on the issue of immigration and latino issues. this was fatal for romney, and the gop is going to have to come to jesus in terms of latino issues and stop being hostile to them, or this a group against them for perhaps decades to come. >> let's update everybody at home. toure has now moved virginia to the blue category. you have 332 electoral votes for obama tomorrow, because you have florida as well. krystal 332. i like to make colorado blue now. 303 obama, 235 romney. s.e.? >> i'm sticking. >> staying the same. >> after nate cohen on saturday said that my map is the best, this guy is copying my map and this guy is moving to be closer to my map. i just want the record to show that. >> we did tweeting with nate on saturday night during the k state game, congratulating k

state. >> you were harassing nate cohen on twitter. >> he admitted the reason he liked your map is because he's crushing on you. >> that is so not what happened. >> we can talk about that. >> it's not appropriate. >> it's true. >> enough of that. coming up, the nate spot, krystal's favorite cruncher nate cohen tells us who has the statistical negligent these final hours. it's krystal ball. ♪

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at this point nate cohen

wrote early this morning on his blog election 8, the polls must be wrong for romney to prevail. the polls have been wrong before and will be wrong again, but the odds are against it. he points out that the national polls are lining up with the state polls. president obama holds a slight lead nationally and the real clear politics of average polls. nate says pencils down time has come, and it appears romney has run out of clock. how do you see this race right now? if this many polls prove to be wrong, would you have to remake your entire model? >> i don't have a model, but all the ways you can look at the polls, it's beginning to tip in obama's direction. the national polls show him creeping ahead. the state pols in a number of states that add up to over 270 electoral votes show the president tied or aahead. there isn't a single nonpartisan poll in ohio, wisconsin or nevada that showing romney in

the lead. you know, it's possible that the polls could be wrong, but that time of systemic failure is l e likely. >> you and kornacki and others have said there will be a gravitational pull, that one will follow the other. you predicted the state polls would follow the national polls, at least that's what kornacki is saying, but the opposite has happened. why do you think that that gravitational pull has happened rather than going the other direction? >> it's hard to say. part of the explanation might be with the hurricane actually. there were a lot of latent democratic voters that supported obama back in september, mainly in blue states, who moved to undecided after the first presidential debate that have moved back in obama's direction after the third. now, i don't know if that's what they considered romney strongly after the debate, watched all three and made up their minds and i'm going back to obama or the hurricane changed their mind again. but it's clear where they're all at.

>> nate, i feel sometimes like i spent the last 20 years of my life fighting the talking point from the 1992 election that republicans like to recycle a lot. they say bill clinton hadn't been elected president if ross perot hadn't been in the race as an independent. i try to argue t. i'm starting to look at this election and see the possibility we'll spend the next 20 years hearing sort of a similar excuse about this race. perhaps from republicans if barack obama wins tomorrow it's only because of hurricane sandy. i started to hear republicans say we had the momentum last week and it stalled and the race froze in place. you've looked at numbers closely. is there anything to that argument? >> i think that you can say there's a tick up in obama's standing in the polls since the hurricane. his number rs were on the rise since october. look at the polls in ohio conducted immediately before the hurricane. a wave of them were ahead by 2 to 5 points like they show now,

and maybe he's better in the blue states as a result. twhae that wasn't going to decide the election. >> nate, i want to talk about what the electorate is like lick to look like tomorrow night. back in 2008, 74% of the lakt rate was white people. the obama campaign is counting on it at 74% or lower. the romney campaign banks on it at 74% or higher. what do you see? are white folks trends downwards in terms of the overall% of the electorate they make up? what dupree district court for foam night? >> the first thing that's important is whatever the answer is, it doesn't influence the outcome of ohio, wisconsin, iowa and new hampshire. they're 83% white or more in the 2008 late rate. if the non-white vote drops in those states obama will probably win given the margin he has.

every year a new wave of 18-year-olds becomes eligible to vote. they're more diverse than every older year, and that moves the electorate in that direction. even if the youth vote turns out less than it did in 2008, those four new year's of voters that weren't even eligible in '08 will obama the room to make up for losses. as a result i think it's tough to see how the electorate is much more white than it was in 2008 and especially anything like 2004 or 2010. >> nate, i've told you before i'm a little suspicious of all polls, so let's go to another indicator courtesy of my friend kevin williamson at the national review. when elections are held on november 6th, republicans usually win. from lirng kun to harrison, mckinley, hoover, eisenhower, reagan. things like good for republicans. is this conclusive? yes or no? >> no, it's probably not. the democrats have a lucky

number in their column, too, and that's 303. that's the number of electoral votes truman won in 1948 and the number kennedy won in 1960 in a very close election and it's the number of electoral votes in which obama is favored right now. >> i like mine better. >> she has to try for something, nate. she has to make the best effort there. >> you hear that by the way. he says 303 is the most likely number for obama. he's agreeing with my map, too. >> after you changed it to be closer to mine. >> nate, we love having you. have fun tonight. follow nate on twitter at electionnate. read his blog. up next, the political ad onslaught is almost over. who had the best and who had the ones that made you want to hurl stuff at the tv? at "week" magazine they share their picks with us next. [ male announcer ] humana and walmart have teamed up

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the ad spending this election season has been ridiculous. the latest figures from the ap say more than a million ads worth a billion dollars in mostly ten battleground states have aired from june 1st to today. that's 40% ads that ran during this election than during the 2008 election. here's what our next guest says were the top spots from both campaigns. from the obama camp. >> there's just no quit in america, and you're seeing that right now. over 5 million new jobs, exports up 41%, home values rising. our auto industry, back. it's an honor to be your president, and i'm asking for your vote so together we can keep moving america forward. >> well, it convinced me. and from the romney camp. >> if you've been successful, you didn't get that on your own. you didn't get there on your own.

i'm always struck by people that think, wow, it must be because i was just so smart. >> president obama attacks success, and therefore, under president obama we have less success and i will change that. >> with us now is ad week magazine charlie warzel to give us a rundown on on the good, bad and big birdie in these ads. i think both ads you pulled are very effective. i particularly like the obama one. >> that's weird. >> that's me. i know, it's shocking. the obama campaign had another ad tha thought was really effective, particularly in ohio. let's take a look at that one. >> we built that 30-foot stage, not knowing what it was for. just days later all three shiftishifts were to told to assemble in the warehouse. a group of people walked out on that stage and told us that the plant is now closed and all of you are fired.

mitt romney made over $100 million by shutting down our plant and devastated our lives. turns out that when we built that stage, it was like building my own coffin. >> i think that ad and ones like it help explain why the president has been able to hold onto his lead in ohio. it plays particularly well there. does the effectiveness of an ad depend in part on where it's played in the country? >> i think it definitely does, and i think the big thing is you got to tell a story, a compelling story. you have to appeal to the emotions. the first two ads that i showed, they're almost like a friday night lights episode at their best. they really appeal to that heartland, that america, that hard-working family. and then you kind of go on the flipside with the priorities usa ad there, and it's just terrible what -- it makes you feel very bad and it portrays mitt romney

in a very negative light. there's another priorities usa ad that sort of talks about closing on the steel plant and then the steelworker's wife got cancer. it's like passively blaming, which you know whether or not it's true, it has real emotional res nance with a bunch of people. >> we showed some of the two best ones. you also rated two of the worst. obama's big bird ad and romney's jeep ad. let's play a quick part from both of those. >> obama took gm and chrysler into bankruptcy and sold chrysler to italians who will build jeeps in china. mitt romney will fight for every american job. >> the evil genius who towered over them? one man has the guts to speak his name. >> big bird. big bird, big bird. >> it's me, big bird. >> big, yellow, a menace to our economy. mitt romney knows it's not wall street to worry about but sesame street.

>> i'm going to stop the subsidy to pbs. >> mitt romney taking on our enemies no matter what. >> that's funny. >> i guess those are the worst because one is inaccurate and the other is ridiculous? >> i saw the big bird ad during "snl," and i actually didn't know for the first second whether or not it was -- >> i believe you, charlie. it is absurd. >> what's wrong with that? >> it works in that we're all talking about it right now, and a lot of people were talking about. i also think that came after the first debate, and it's a little late to be so frivolous and flippant. >> silly? >> yeah. i think people are struggling in the country, and they want to hear the message. they want a plan laid out, and i don't know they want -- >> don't they want to laugh when they're down and out? don't they want a chuckle to make them feel better? >> perhaps. hey, these strategists know a lot about how to reach people. it was effective, but i think a

lot of people criticized it. i don't think you need to kind of get into that sort of privile frivolous place campaign. >> you mentioned the super-pacs. you have outside groups with bottomless pockets floating the airwaves everywhere. you singled out two of the best super-pac ads, one pro-romney and one proobama. let's look at them first. >> obama, obama, obama! >> oh, yeah. >> obama, obama, obama, obama. >> whether mitt romney and bain closed the plant, i lost my health care, and my family lost their health care. a short time after that my wife

became ill. that's when they found the cancer, and by then it was stage four. there was nothing they could do for her. and she passed away in 22 days. i do not think mitt romney realizes what he's done to anyone. i do not think mitt romney is concerned. >> so you made reference to that obama one, a pro-obama one at the end there. my question about an ad like that and it's similar to a jeep one. he's taken a lot of blow back in the free press for that free ad and it's inaccurate. the pro-obama one was so inflammatory about causing his wife's death. i remember it being -- a considerable amount of blow-back to that one too. is that a risk with ads like this that it stirs up a lot of resentment through the press and say, it's not fair? >> i think so. a the lot of people don't realize that those super-pac ads aren't directly connected to the candidat candidates. a lot of people get up in arms,

how could you obama release an ad like that with dirty politics? that can hurt you in a way unforeseen about this cycle. >> i love this ad. let's show that for a second. >> the first time shouldn't be with just anybody. you want to do it with a great guy. it should be a guy with beautiful -- someone who really cares about and understanding women. a guy who cares whether you get health insurance and whether you get birth control. my first time voting was amazing. it was this line in the sand. before i was a girl. now i was a woman. i went to the polling station. i pulled back the curtain, and i voted for barack obama. >> i find the ad very emotional, very direct. it gets at obama as this cool guy. it uses the celebrity and the pop culture icon in a good way. talks to the youth voters who respect lena dunham. she's not just saying i like the

guy. there's real reasons she likes the guy. ? a good ad? >> i think it's a good ad. people who may not -- we never use a celebrity. people who are not fans of that celebrity will come out. you're riding the coattails of that person. celebrity psas have been around forever. they've been ridiculous and good and effective. i don't think you can necessarily go wrong if you pick carefully and help craft the message. if you let a celebrity go off -- everybody knows -- >> the people who didn't like that ad or turned off are not voting for barack obama. i think it addressed the exact audience it was trying to. >> charlie, thank you so much. up next, he backed president obama four years ago, but noes he's one of romney's allies. former massachusetts governor bill weld joins us live right here in democracy plaza. that's straight ahead. ♪ [ male announcer ] the way it moves.

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chances are, you're not made of money, so don't overpay for motorcycle insurance. geico, see how much you could save. we are back here in democracy plaza. mitt romney is back in the battleground state of virginia. let's take a listen. >> if anyone wants to know where the energy is, if anyone out there that's following american politics wants to know where the energy is, just come right here in this room and you'll see it.

i want to thank your governor, governor bob macdonald, the most popular governor in america, and the first lady maureen macdonald as well. thank you to the next united states senator from the commonwealth of virginia, george allen. thanks, also, to congressman frank wolf for introducing us here and welcoming us here. and thank you for that welcome. i'm overwhelmed. that's really something special. thank you. i'm looking around to see if we have the beatles here or something, but it looks like you came just for the campaign. i appreciate it. your voices and your energy and your passion is being heard all

over the nation. and we -- ann and i hear them in our hearts as well. thank you for being here and for showing us that kind of welcome. thank you for the work that so many of you have been doing, going across the neighborhood, knocking on doors, making phone calls for us at victory centers, putting up signs in your yard and in your neighbors' yards. >> all right. joining us at the table now is former massachusetts governor bill weld. he endorsed barack obama in 2008 but this time around he throws his support behind mitt romney. thanks for stopping by. the story from the last few days from the romney campaign's angle has been record crowds for romney at the rallies and lots of enthusiasm. republicans still think they can win this. if you look at the polls, they have moved in obama's direction in the last few days.

i guess i wonder, you as somebody who has known mitt romney for his entire political career from the very beginning, he's spent five years at least running for president presiden. what does a guy like this do if he falls short? >> he's had a lot of accomplishment in his life. i do think he's a foreign executive and he's had achievement there both as governor and at the olympics and bain capital presiding over high intellect individuals and keeping them happy for years. i think this guy could hurt squirrels. he'll figure out something to do. he's not a person whose ego depends on success here. i really think he's doing it for the reasons he says he is which is for the country. >> governor, i want to remind you of your wholehearted endorsement of president obama in 2008 when you said senator obama is a once in a lifetime candidate who will transform our politics and restore america's

standing in the world. we need a president who will lead based on our common values and senator obama common straits an ability to unite and inspire. >> i did believe that. >> why the change of heart? that was gushing. >> i went with obama because i thought obama would be better for the economy which is still my top issue and now i don't think that. one candidate wants higher government spending and more taxes to feed spending. and the one who wants all that is president obama. at least he stuck to his guns. i just don't happen to like his guns. >> they're so vastly different. how do you reconcile a vote for obama and a vote for romney? >> well, we didn't have the four years of the higher taxes, higher spending, and frankly lack of political skill four years ago. now we've got a lot to look at. >> back in 2008 a lot of

conservatives blamed john mccain being too moderate for their loss and then we had the tea party and a dramatic move to the right as a result of that. now there's already talk of who will get the blame or what will get the blame if romney does end up losing and what senator lindsay graham of south carolina said is if i hear anybody say it was because romney wasn't conservative enough i'm going to go nuts. we're not losing 95% of african-americans and 2/3 of hispanics and voters under 30 because we're not being hard-ass enough. what do you think the explanation will be after election day if romney does lose tomorrow? >> i agree with mr. graham. i'm a bad person to ask because i'm a self confessed liberal. but i think mitt romney's a very moderate guy. by any common sense definition of the word. he's one o of the most decent people i know.

the moderate mitt romney i say yeah that's the guy i've known for 30 years. >> i think mitt romney's happy you weren't speaking up for him more during the primaries calling him a moderate. we have to cut it short but i hope we can have you back. >> love to. >> thanks. next up, the sound track of the city live from democracy plaza. .

♪ 20 years ago i arrived in new york city, got off the train like stevie wonder saying new york just like i pictured it. i had no job and no friends in the city, but i thought i had to be in new york because it was the biggest toughest greatest city in the world. i had frank sinatra ringing in my ears. i wanted to wake up in a city that doesn't sleep because if i could make it there, i would make it everywhere. times square was central. getting mugged was a constant possibility. sometimes i wondered if i missed out on the great city my father had grown up in. there were clubs open at every hour of the day. always some interesting new person to meet. you knew any dream you had could

come true in new york. i read joan's good-bye to all that as i fell in love with the city that came to seem like the best friend imaginable. it was so tough and strong i was proud to be part of it. see, before i arrived new york's greatest challenge seemed to come mostly from within. but over the last 11 years, new york's epic challenges have come from outside and revealed the depth of its character. 9/11 tested this city's medal like nothing ever has and will. 9/11 will always be a part of new york as it will always be part of america. but we picked ourselves up and mourned and healed and moved on because of the strength that marked this city before i even moved here. every challenge since then brings echoes with it. so the city that was knocked down by 9/11 was staggered by the superstorm of 2012, i'm so

proud of how my city has shown it can take a punch. even a mike tyson to the children and stand on its feet and say that's all you got? no matter what's thrown at us, we don't rebuild. we reload, baby. we know we'll get through this. because we're survivors. all right. that does it for "the cycle." martin, it's yours. >> thank you all. we are live from nbc's democracy plaza on this monday, november 5th. look around us. it is here and it is on. ♪ >> we'll win this election. we'll finish what we started. >> tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow. >> our president barack obama. >> what do you think's going to happen? >> i think that we're going to win. >> i'm tired of being tired. >> vote obama.